A couple of weeks ago, Jose Vasquez learned that former Albuquerque police officer Honorio Alba Jr. had pleaded guilty to taking bribes from a local defense attorney in exchange for making DWI cases disappear. "I almost fell out of my bed because I was watching the news that day, and I just, I couldn't believe it," Vasquez told KRQE, the CBS affiliate in Albuquerque. "I was like, there it is. This is it. It did have to do with money."
Alexander M.M. Uballez, the U.S. attorney for New Mexico, says Alba was just one of "many officers" who participated in a bribery scheme that began decades ago and eventually involved nearly every cop assigned to the Albuquerque Police Department (APD) unit charged with apprehending drunk drivers. For Vasquez, one of 14 plaintiffs in a recent lawsuit provoked by the corruption scandal, the news of Alba's guilty plea definitively solved a mystery that began more than four years ago.
On a Sunday in September 2020, Alba stopped Vasquez for speeding on Paseo Del Norte Road in northeast Albuquerque. But instead of simply writing him a ticket, Alba alleged that Vasquez was driving while intoxicated. Vasquez was dismayed by the accusation, since he had not been drinking and in fact had given up alcohol for health reasons.
